2065438+In May 2009, a policy notice issued by the National Development and Reform Commission announced that the era of cheap wind power access to the Internet was coming. Prior to this, the wind power industry chain was highly dependent on subsidies for profit from the bottom up. The gradual decline of subsidies means that the wind power industry can only achieve sustained growth by reducing costs and increasing efficiency in the future. At the same time, with the rapid development of cheap internet access, there has been a phenomenon of "rushing to install" in the industry, and the installed capacity has continued to surge in recent years.

With the reduction of industrial cost and the surge of installed capacity, the wind turbine manufacturers located in the middle of the industrial chain and undertaking the main task of industrial cost reduction have fallen into the quagmire of "price war" by virtue of their capital and technological advantages, and the head enterprises led by Goldwind Technology have been able to seize more market share, accelerate the improvement of industry concentration and rapidly expand their revenue scale. Affected by this, from 20 19 to 202 1, Goldwind's share price rose by more than 90%, and its annualized income was close to 25%.

However, under the fierce price war, the bidding price of fans has been squeezing the profit space of the fan industry, and it is becoming more and more obvious that the industry will not increase its income.

So, what is the reason that leads to the phenomenon of increasing income but not increasing profit in the fan industry? What is the position of Goldwind Technology in the industry? Is the future worthy of long-term attention?

This paper attempts to answer the following questions:

1. How did Goldwind Technology become the industry leader?

2. Why don't fan manufacturers increase their income?

3. Is Goldwind Technology worthy of investors' attention?

Why has Goldwind Technology become the leader of wind turbines?

With the rapid economic growth in China, the electricity consumption of the whole society is rising. In 20021year, the electricity consumption of the whole society reached 8312.8 billion kwh, up 10.3% year-on-year. By 2020, China's per capita electricity consumption will reach about 17 times of the world average.

Behind the increasing electricity consumption year by year is the increasing demand for energy. As we all know, the traditional fossil energy, mainly coal, is non-renewable and constantly causes environmental pollution problems. At present, under the guidance of the targets of "peak carbon dioxide emission" and "carbon neutrality", China is accelerating the transformation of energy structure and giving strong financial support to the clean energy power generation industry represented by hydropower, wind power and photovoltaic.

Among them, wind power generation, as the second largest clean energy in China, has developed rapidly under the promotion of multiple favorable policies, and its industrial scale has been growing. In 20021year, 652.6 billion kwh of wind power was generated nationwide, up 40.5% year-on-year. By the end of 20021,the cumulative installed capacity of wind power in China was 328 million kilowatts, ranking first in the world for 12 years.

In the whole wind power industry chain, it is mainly completed by the upper, middle and lower reaches. Among them, the upstream of the industrial chain consists of fan parts such as blades, wind towers, spindles and engine room covers; Fan manufacturers in the middle reaches purchase parts from the upstream and integrate them to form fans; Power generated by wind turbines is operated by downstream wind farms.

In the whole industrial chain, the wind turbine manufacturers located in the middle reaches of the industrial chain bear the main installed demand, which is also the key link that directly benefits from the policy. Benefiting from the continuous expansion of the wind power industry in recent years, the revenue scale of wind turbine manufacturers has also been rapidly improved. Take Goldwind Technology as an example. As shown in the figure, Goldwind Technology experienced two consecutive years of revenue decline of 20 16 and 20 17, and its revenue scale rebounded rapidly. In 2020, the revenue exceeded 50 billion yuan for the first time, up 47% year-on-year, and the compound growth rate from 20/kloc-0 to 7-2020 exceeded 30%.

Moreover, the fan is the most industrialized link in China. At present, China has occupied more than two-thirds of the global market share and is the largest fan manufacturer in the world. In 2020, among the top ten wind turbine manufacturers in the world, China enterprises will occupy 7 seats.

Fan is an industry with highly concentrated market. According to the data of Bloomberg New Energy Finance, in 20021year, China Van CR3 reached 50%, accounting for half of the market share. Goldwind Technology, Yuan Jing Energy and Yangming Intelligent rank among the top three in China all the year round. In addition, Shanghai Electric, Dayun, CRRC Wind Energy, Dongfang Electric and Sany Heavy Industry also ranked in the top ten.

Among the top ten listed companies, Goldwind Technology, as an established fan manufacturer for more than 20 years, is ahead of its peers in both market scale and performance, occupying an absolute leading position.

The business structure (wind turbine manufacturing, wind power service, wind farm investment and development) is similar. Compared with Yangming Intelligent and Dayun, which are located in the first echelon, the market scale of Goldwind Technology 202 1 reaches 16. 1%, ranking second in China. The market shares of Yangming Intelligent and Dayun are 15.26% and 10.89%, respectively, ranking third and fifth.

In terms of performance ability, in 20 19 and 2020, Goldwind's annual revenue scale reached 30 billion yuan and 50 billion yuan respectively, while Yang Ming Intelligent's annual revenue scale only exceeded 20 billion yuan in 2020.

In terms of profitability, from 20 16 to 20 18, Goldwind Technology has been leading its peers with a net profit of more than 10%. 20 19-2020, the net interest rate of Goldwind Technology is slightly lower than that of Yangming Intelligent, but it is still higher than Dayun.

Goldwind Technology can become an industry leader. We believe that the main reasons include the following aspects:

First of all, the financial strength is strong. Fan manufacturing is an asset-intensive and capital-intensive industry, and the overall cycle from production to profit is relatively long. In this context, participants need to make considerable upfront investment (including purchasing technology), and only after reaching a certain scale can they generate benefits. From design to certification and mass production of large wind turbines, the cycle is usually measured in years, and this game is obviously not suitable for small players who are short of funds.

At the same time, in recent years, the acceleration of subsidies and cheap Internet access has prompted downstream wind power operators to conduct upward price reduction pressure, forcing the industrial chain to reduce costs and increase efficiency. Fan manufacturers in the middle reaches undertake the main task of reducing costs. However, due to the lack of discourse power in the industrial chain and the two-way squeeze between upstream and downstream, wind turbine manufacturers can only compete at low prices and seize market share.

The continuous price war makes the profit space of fan manufacturing industry shrink again and again. At the same time, due to factors such as wind farm construction period, the downstream payment period is long. Therefore, "borrowing money to operate" has almost become the normal state of wind turbine manufacturers, leading to high asset-liability ratio and great financial pressure of related enterprises. With the intensification of the price war, small and medium-sized manufacturers without capital and scale advantages are more prone to financial crisis, which leads to the elimination of poor management and eventually accelerates the concentration of market share to the leader.

In this context, head enterprises such as Goldwind Technology have relatively controllable overall financial risks due to their strong financial strength and obvious scale advantages. As shown in the figure, in terms of asset-liability ratio, the first echelon manufacturers including Goldwind Technology and Yangming Intelligent are significantly lower than the second echelon manufacturers such as Electric Wind Power and Sany Heavy Industry. In terms of cash flow, by the end of 2020, the cash balance of Goldwind Technology will reach 7.7 billion yuan, while the cash balance of Dayun and Sany Heavy Industry is only about 654.38+07 billion yuan.

Secondly, the technical advantages are obvious. The technical difference of the fan is mainly reflected in the design of the core transmission chain. Direct drive and doubly-fed are two main technical routes of wind turbines. The essential difference between direct drive and doubly-fed technology lies in whether it includes gearbox (also known as gearbox). In general, the speed of the wind wheel is low, which is far from the speed required by the generator to generate electricity. Power generation needs to be realized by increasing the speed of the gearbox. Under the direct drive technology, the wind power generator does not need to install a gearbox, and the generator is directly driven by the wind.

Simply put, for wind turbine manufacturers, the advantage of direct drive technology lies in power generation efficiency, while doubly-fed technology has cost advantage.

Doubly-fed is the most widely used mainstream technology route at present, and Goldwind Technology is one of the few domestic enterprises that deeply cultivate direct-drive wind turbines. What competitive advantages does higher-cost direct-drive technology bring to Goldwind Technology?

The first is higher power generation efficiency. There is no gearbox to increase the speed, which means that to achieve the same power generation efficiency, it is necessary to increase the weight and volume of the fan technically, which will inevitably lead to an increase in cost. The introduction of permanent magnet technology by Goldwind Technology is beneficial to solve this problem. The direct-drive permanent magnet wind generator introduced by Goldwind Technology can achieve self-excitation effect, thus improving efficiency by reducing power loss. Wind Energy Monthly once wrote that the research results show that permanent magnet technology is superior to doubly-fed technology, and the efficiency of permanent magnet generator is 3% to 4% higher than that of doubly-fed generator under partial load operation.

Secondly, scrapping the gearbox will reduce the subsequent maintenance cost to a certain extent. According to the monthly data of Windpower, the failure rate of gearbox is the highest among fan components.

Looking forward to the future, offshore wind power projects have become the most important incremental space in the industry. In recent years, semi-direct drive has the advantages of direct drive and double feed, and has a good performance in cost optimization and power generation efficiency. At the same time, the failure rate is relatively low, which is recognized as a relatively suitable technical route for offshore wind power projects. At present, Goldwind Technology has begun to actively deploy.

Technical advantages are inseparable from Goldwind's emphasis on research and development. In terms of R&D investment, except that 20 19 is slightly lower than that of Yangming Intelligent and Dayun, Goldwind Technology's R&D expense ratio has been much higher than that of its peers in recent years.

Why does the industry increase its income and not increase its profits?

Giants also have difficulties-the wind power policy is excellent, but the money is not so good?

As mentioned above, in recent years, under the favorable stimulation of the dual-carbon policy, the revenue scale of fan manufacturers represented by Goldwind Technology has ushered in rapid expansion. However, contrary to the substantial increase in revenue, the company's profitability is declining. In 20021year, Goldwind's gross profit margin dropped from 30% of the highest level in 20 17 to 22.55%, and its net interest rate dropped from 12.53% in 20 17 to 6.90%.

And this phenomenon of increasing income without increasing profits is not only happening in Goldwind Technology. In 2020, Yangming's smart revenue increased by 1 14% year-on-year, the gross profit margin decreased by 4.09 percentage points year-on-year, and the net interest rate decreased by 0.49 percentage points year-on-year.

What is the reason for it

From the profit model of wind turbine manufacturing business, it can be seen that the revenue end of wind turbine manufacturing is mainly the income from selling wind turbines to wind power operators, and the cost end includes operating costs and a series of expenses such as sales, management, research and development, among which the operating costs are mainly composed of the cost of purchasing parts from the upstream.

Analyzing item by item, it is normal for fan manufacturers to have high costs in terms of operating costs. In the past three years, the operating cost rate of Jin Feng science and technology fans and parts sales business has reached more than 80%. Affected by epidemic situation, geopolitics and other factors, the rising price of raw materials used in upstream parts manufacturing further increased the cost pressure of wind turbine manufacturers.

At the same time, it should be noted that following the construction cycle of wind farms (starting at the beginning of the year, starting during the year, and completing and putting into operation at the end of the year), the performance cycle of wind turbine manufacturing business is seasonal, and sales revenue and loan recovery are concentrated in the fourth quarter of each year. Because the income is recognized when the control right of goods is transferred, it cannot be produced and delivered immediately after the order is obtained, there is a situation that "in the cycle of rising raw material prices, the low-priced orders in the early stage affect the current profits".

In addition to the above-mentioned cost pressure, the "price war" of fans has further reduced the profit margin of manufacturers.

As we all know, wind power is an industry with strong policy. In 2020-202 1 year, the state gradually abolished the policy subsidies for onshore wind power projects, and newly approved projects were connected to the Internet at low prices.

In the context of declining subsidies, the wind power industry began to "rush to install", which greatly increased the bidding volume of wind power projects. According to GWEC data, the scale of public bidding for wind power in 20 19 reached the highest level in history, 65GW. With the rapid expansion of the market, the production capacity of head enterprises is not enough to meet all the new market share, and some demand overflows to second-and third-tier fan manufacturers. In order to seize the opportunity and seize more market share, second-and third-tier fan manufacturers adopt a low-price competition strategy and take the lead in setting off a "price war" in the industry.

According to the data of Guo Rong Securities, taking 3MW wind turbines as an example, in 2020 alone, the bidding price dropped from 4,040 yuan /kw at the beginning of 2020 to 24 10 yuan /kw in September of 20021year, and the bidding for Yunnan Qujing wind farm of China Guangdong Nuclear Power Co., Ltd. hit a record low of 65,438 yuan /kw.

On the whole, wind turbine manufacturers, as the midstream enterprises in the industrial chain, have no obvious right to speak upstream and downstream, and need to bear the cost pressure brought by the rising prices of upstream raw materials, and constantly rely on low-price competition to seize market share. The two-way squeeze of income and cost eventually leads to the continuous squeeze of the overall profit space of the industry, and there is an obvious phenomenon of increasing income without increasing profit.

What is the investment value of Goldwind Technology?

Although under the goal of "double carbon", wind power and photovoltaic, as the main clean energy sources, are industries strongly supported by policies. But in the secondary market, it is another scene, and the valuation level of wind power has been significantly lower than that of photovoltaic.

Judging from the leading stocks, the market value of Longji shares, the leader of photovoltaic industry, once exceeded 500 billion yuan, the market value of Tongwei shares once exceeded 260 billion yuan, and the market value of Sunshine Power once exceeded 240 billion yuan. In contrast, the leading stocks in the upper, middle and lower reaches of the wind power industry are at a low level. The maximum market value of Sinoma Technology and Goldwind Technology is less than 654.38+00 billion yuan, and the maximum market value of Longyuan Power is about 654.38+05 billion Hong Kong dollars.

So why is capital so indifferent to wind power?

The primary reason is that the profitability of wind power faucet is generally lower than that of photovoltaic faucet. As shown in the figure, the gross profit margin and net profit margin of Longji and Sunshine Power from 20 18 to 2020 are significantly higher than those of Goldwind Technology and Yangming Intelligent.

In addition to operational differences, according to the goal of "double carbon", the total installed capacity of wind power and solar power will reach 65.438+0.2 billion kilowatts by 2030. This means that there is a competitive relationship between wind power and photovoltaic industry to a certain extent when the total amount is clear. Of the two, whoever can take the lead in achieving lower electricity consumption costs and higher power generation efficiency through technological innovation will win more voice. The valuation of photovoltaic and wind power has also widened the gap.

The photovoltaic industry is similar to the semiconductor industry, and the cost can be continuously reduced by improving the photoelectric conversion efficiency in the future. Wind power industry is a traditional manufacturing industry, and it is difficult to reduce costs through technological progress in the future. This means that the power cost of wind power industry will drop much faster than that of photovoltaic industry.

In addition, the leading enterprises in the photovoltaic industry can maintain their position in the industry through technological progress, thus resisting the price war and maintaining the stability of profits. The wind power industry, which belongs to the traditional manufacturing industry, can only sacrifice its own profits in the case of price war because of its relatively low entry threshold. So overall, the valuation of wind power industry is much lower than that of photovoltaic industry.

Then, under the circumstance that the overall valuation of the industry is generally low, is Goldwind Technology worthy of attention?

In the short term, as mentioned above, in recent years, with the support of the dual-carbon policy, the scale of the fan industry has expanded rapidly, but the price war has led to the current situation that Goldwind Technology and other enterprises increase their income without increasing their profits, which makes the market reserve the forecast of the profitability of fan manufacturers.

However, looking ahead, with onshore wind power and offshore wind power about to enter the parity era, the competitiveness of the wind power industry is improving from the IRR level, which is conducive to the improvement of the overall valuation of the industry.

Minsheng Securities research report shows that wind power projects have obvious scale effect. With the expansion of development scale, the cost per watt continues to decline. Other things being equal, the larger the scale of wind power project, the lower the investment per kilowatt, and the lower the investment will obviously improve the project income. When the capacity is expanded from 50MW to 400MW, the internal rate of return of the total project investment will increase from 9.33% to 10.60%, and the LCOE will decrease from 0.3453 yuan /kWh to 0.3085 yuan.

At the same time, with the intensification of the price war, it is expected that the industry will speed up the clearing of backward production capacity, and the leader led by Goldwind Technology will regain more market share with the advantages of capital and technology, and the industry concentration is expected to be further improved.

In the long run, compared with onshore wind power, offshore wind power will have greater development prospects in the future because of its advantages such as small base and less geographical restrictions. In the field of offshore wind power, Yang Ming Intelligent, which is also in the first echelon, has shown strong technical advantages.

As mentioned above, semi-direct drive is a more suitable technical route for offshore wind power projects, and Yangming Intelligent is the earliest wind turbine manufacturer in China to lay out the semi-direct drive technical route, and has a certain first-Mover advantage. In terms of large capacity of wind turbines, according to statistics of Guosen Securities, at present, the maximum capacity of Yang Ming's intelligent offshore wind turbines has exceeded 1.6 MW, while the maximum capacity of Goldwind's offshore wind turbines is only 8MW, which is far from Yang Ming's intelligence.

On the whole, through the above comparison, Goldwind Technology occupies the first echelon in the industry in terms of market share, revenue scale and profitability, and is a well-deserved leading enterprise. In the future, it will benefit from the increase of market share, and the company is expected to gradually achieve performance recovery.

In the long run, in the field of offshore wind power, strong competitors such as Yang Ming Intelligent are more advanced in technology, and Goldwind Technology is under great pressure. If we can't maintain our leading position in the field of offshore wind power in the future, some market shares are likely to be swallowed up by our competitors.